J Mascis: ‘Kurt Cobain asked me to join Nirvana’

The singer and guitarist says he missed out playing with the iconic grunge group as both guitarist and drummer in the late 80s and early 90s.

“Nirvana was playing Maxwell’s and after the show I was talking to Kurt and [Sonic Youth’s] Thurston Moore,” Mascis tells Spin – referring to Nirvana’s date at the celebrated New Jersey venue on July 13, 1989.

“Kurt said, ‘you should join my band.’ I think he was sick of the guy Jason [Everman] who was in the band at the time, and thought I should play guitar. I didn’t think much about it. Later, there was also talk of playing drums on a single [1990’s ‘Sliver’] they were doing, but it ended up being [Mudhoney drummer] Dan Peters.”

Jason Everman was briefly second guitarist in Nirvana in 1989 and is credited on ‘Bleach’.

Dinosaur Jr. released their tenth studio album ‘I Bet On The Sky’ on September 17. Speaking about the LP, J Mascis told NME: “There’s a couple of songs with more of a groove, a little bit mellower, but there’s some heavier stuff on it too.”

He added: “It’s funky for us, but not that funky. I like the first song ‘Don’t Pretend You Didn’t Know’ the best, that’s one of the funkier numbers, it seemed to come together in a good way.”